


Restraining Order in the Works

by Ezlebe



Category: The Hangover (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-06
Updated: 2011-10-06
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:50:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ezlebe/pseuds/Ezlebe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stu is lost and Tracy wishes she could change her phone number without residual guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restraining Order in the Works

It starts a couple scant hours after they finally get the baby down, Doug passed out and snoring, when Tracy wakes up to the familiar sound of her cellphone ringing just down the hallway. She darts up, tripping over blankets and waking up Doug, who groans for a moment but quickly falls back asleep, even with a shoulder and arm hanging over the bedside. She nearly stubs her toe on the kitchen island, but manages to answer the phone before it starts a second round of her ring-tone.

“Whoever this is, you better hope I don’t have your address,” she hisses, trying to infuse the tone with every bit of agitation she can muster at this hour.

“Tracy!” Stu shrieks back, prompting her to blink in shock and squint at the screen to make sure it’s not a hallucination, “Tracy, so glad you answered.”

“Of course I answered, you called my phone,” she responds, even more pissed off, “what the hell made you think that was a good idea?”

“I think I’m lost.” Stu slurs, panicked but also annoyingly bemused, “there was a bar and now... there isn’t.”

Her anger starts tapering off into worry, and she idly wonders what someone did to make Stu want to get this drunk. “Stu, why did you call me?”

“Because we always call you when this happens,” his speech is getting harder to understand, and she hangs her head to pillow in the palm of a hand, wondering why she ever got to know Doug’s friends.

“Where are you, Stu?”

“I don’t know, it’s gross and dark and, and,” His breath gets quicker, his voice higher in pitch, “Tracy, I’m s-starting to freak out.”

“Stu, don’t hyperventilate, okay honey?” She says hastily, trying to calm him down, embarrassed to realize it’s the same voice she uses with the baby. “I’ll call Phil an-”

“No!” He yells shrilly, and she winces at the loud noise. “You can’t, he’ll be really angry and there won’t be any more food.”

She feels her face twist up into a confusion, and tries to find a correlation between the two events, but fails. She assumes it makes sense on some level, but at this hour she honestly doesn’t care, “Stu, honey, he’s probably worried.”

“No no, this is my fault.” He starts sniffling to match the quick inhalations, and she gets the disturbing feeling that he might start crying. “Why was she even there?!”

“I honestly have no idea,” Tracy starts rubbing her forehead, and half-hopes this is just a really weird dream.

“She’s evil, Tracy, like a Disney character.”

She freezes, and there is an honestly terrified niggling at the back of her mind, she really, really hopes he isn’t talking about who she thinks. “Stu, I need you to be honest.”

“Of course, I’m totally like, fucking, honest Abe. You’re like a sister who gave me a brother I never wanted.”

“Okay, Stu,” She emphasizes his name and takes a deep breath, continuing to ignore whatever he says that doesn’t make sense “are you talking about Melissa?”

“Sshh-shhhh, don’t say her name!” Stu hisses into the phone, “she might come back, and I don’t think she even needs a mirror!”

“I am going to calling Phil right now,” She ignores the half-hearted declarations that it’s a bad idea, and shifts the phone to look through the contacts, quickly finding Phil’s cell.“Stu, I’m going to hang up, but don’t freak out. And don’t move.”

~

Phil’s nearly wringing his hands in a terrible cliché when Tracy calls, telling him to get over his pride to call Stu, and do it now. He spares her the regular speech about not being the wife in the relationship and hangs up just as she’s telling him something about calling Doug next time. Whatever that means.

Stu’s phone rings to many times for comfort and he texts before calling again, glad no one is there to witness the sigh of relief when Stu picks up this time. “Stu, what the fuck do you think you’re doing, and on a goddamn school night!?” He growls into the phone, surprised at his own lack of calm.

“I’m sorry,” Stu yells back, something off about his voice, “sorry. I’m so, so sorry Phil. Sorry.” Phil frowns and rethinks the lecture about Stu having too much fun without him. “And, and fuck you, I don’t have to go to school.”

“Are you okay?” He asks after a moment of listening to heavy breathing, grabbing a pen and looking for the closest piece of paper, a stray receipt out of his pants. He turns it over, making sure the pen works and tries to remember what bar the man said he was going to, “Stu, tell me you didn’t try to drive home?”

“The car! I forgot the car,” Stu shrieks and starts ranting, “someone is going to steal my car!”

He lets Stu continue a few seconds before interrupting, “okay buddy, just calm down and tell me what bar you went to so I can come get you.”

The other man takes a deep breath and Phil raises an eyebrow, “I think I’m in the ghetto, Phil.”

“...What?”

“It’s really dark and there is almost no one here and, and I told Tracy I was scared and it wasn’t a lie at all.” Stu’s teeth chatter into the phone, and Phil’s suddenly struck with the horrible image of nerdy little Stu, clutching his phone while getting mugged. “Phil, are you still there?! Phil!”

“I’m still here,” Phil responds hastily, “just tell me where you are.”

“I don’t know,” Stu sounds close to tears, and Phil grabs his own hand, trying to pretend it wasn’t shaking. “How can someone be so evil, Phil, I didn’t even do anything. Wasn’t even really drinking, it was for the office, Jaime said I never go, so I did and you remember, you said I should and now it’s all really bad, Phil, really bad. I’m never going to try and have fun ever again, ever.”

Phil hushes Stu through the phone, rubbing at his brow and trying not to make this any worse than it already is. “Can you read any street signs?”

“I-I dunno, she took my glasses.” Stu says wetly, “but I think there’s one across- ah no, no that’s a hooker.” He starts laughing nervously into the phone, “I could ask her, right? She’d know, of course, it’s her corner,” Stu’s hitched breath is worryingly loud over the phone, “Phil, if I die-”

“You’re not going to die!” Phil growls, and regrets it when Stu squeaks a little at the sentence. “You’re going to ask her where the fuck you are and then you’re never going to dri- wait.”

“You’re right, I should just keep here, I don’t want to marry another hooker.” Stu laughs tightly, but Phil mostly ignores it as he starts replaying the last few sentences in his head.

“I’ll kill them!”

“What, no, who wait, what? Who are you killing?” Stu starts repeating variations of the theme, “you can’t kill anyone, you’re a teacher.”

“Who ever thought they could kidnap and fucking who knows in the goddamn,” Phil takes a deep breath, and tries to beat back the sudden wave of anger, “just motherfucking- you’ve gotten drugged so much it’s going to give you cancer.”

“You said she was bad, I should have listened and then but no, she’s bad, but she forgot about my phone so now it’s okay.” Stu’s voice rises in pitch again, “it’s going to be okay Phil! Melissa will-”

“Melissa.” He grinds out after the momentary shock of her name wears off, “that fucking cunt is going to die slowly and painfully.”

He starts to run through past instances, building a case against her bullshit, but this really takes the fucking cake. Three years later and she tries to kill Stu, and now Phil really is going to remove the head from that fucking harpy’s body with the power of his own bare hands, and Stu is going to have no say otherwise, felony or not. He knows Alan probably has connections to get rid of a body, or at least a good lawyer.

“The hooker says 8th and Renough.” Stu says proudly into the anger clouded silence, and Phil doesn’t even spare the thought to change out of his pajama pants as he grabs the keys and stumbles out the door to the car, “she says I look very nice without my glasses.”

“Stu, if you sleep with a hooker, I’ll castrate you.” Phil says flatly, “tell her you’re gay.”

“But I’m not-”

“Tell. Her.” He dials the address into the annoying as fuck tom-tom and winces as it cheerfully says Stu is nearly all the way across town, but he’s sure that he can make it in thirty minutes if he disobeys most of the traffic laws.

“She says you’re not as pretty as her, but you are.” Stu’s voice reverberates around the vehicle, blue tooth add-on finally proving to be useful. “You’re way prettier, even.”

The rest of the ride continues that way, Stu apparently forgetting about his previous fear of getting murdered by the woman, and Phil tries not to entertain thoughts of what can happen in just thirty minutes, or fifteen, even ten, as the GPS tells him he’s getting closer.

He approaches the corner, ignoring the quality of the neighborhood, and jumps out the instant he shifts it into park. He tries not to give away to much emotion when Stu practically jumps him just as he closes the door, but if he’s honest, it’s not a very good job; especially when Stu mumbles something into his shoulder about being the best thing ever. He kisses the side of the other man’s neck and resists the urge to do more as he catches sight of the woman, smirking at them from her bench and smoking a cigarette.

“Okay,” she says, her voice raspy but not unattractive, “he wasn’t lying, you’re prettier than me.”

Phil pulls an arm out of Stu’s grip and shuffles them around to the passenger side to open the door, shoving Stu in and buckling the man down. He can’t resist the urge and kisses him, before pushing the man back into the seat and rummaging through the glove box, pulling out a wad of twenties.

He walks over and hands it to the woman, “that’s about two-fifty.” Phil avoids looking directly in her eyes, and scratches his forehead, “thanks for watching him.”

She scoffs, but doesn’t try to give it back, “I don’t need a reward.”

“You’re out here on a bench in the middle of the night,” he says sharply, turning to her. “You don’t need one, but you want one.”

She shrugs, “your boy’s cute, but you should get him off that shit.”

"He's not actually, well he is right now, obviously," Phil sighs and resists grinding his teeth, “it was actually this crazy bitch,” he explains shortly, “she’ll get what’s coming to her.”

She raises her eyebrow and looks down at the money, counting it before making a considering look. “So you’re that kind of guy who carries around cash in his glovebox,” the woman smirks a little self deprecatingly, obviously thinking she’s got it something figured out.

“No,” Phil sighs, and feels a lot of the tension leak out of his shoulders, leaving behind exhaustion, “but I could be.” He turns around and waves tiredly, “don’t spend it all in one place.”

“You take care of him, or I might actually charge next time,” she laughs, and leans further back into the bench. He climbs into the car, makes sure the other man can hold his head up, smirking when Stu awkwardly waves back at the woman as they drive away.

The car is silent for most the trip back. Stu presumably distracted with trying to catch the lights as they drive past, judging by the way his hand moves towards them, but Phil can’t resist the urge to lighten the mood. “So this will be the third time, although I’ll actually help you kill the one who did it this time.”

Stu seems to ignore the sentence and reaches across the center console to grab his hand, pulling it to the other side of the car and examining the fingers and palm like they’re fascinating. Phil raises an eyebrow but doesn’t pull it back, and smiles when the other man apparently decides something and turns it over to simply hold it, tapping the back of Phil’s knuckles to some beat in his head.

“You’re not going to remember any of this tomorrow, but I’m definitely going to make fun of you for it,” Phil laughs quietly relief finally setting in, he squeezes back and watches out of the corner of his eye as Stu slowly falls asleep, head dipping towards the window, “Tracy will probably eviscerate you though.”


End file.
